Day 1360. It was a typical morning, except that we had to watch the clock. After breakfast I cleaned them up and dressed them, so that they were ready by 9 am. However, the Mobile Support lady was late, and so they were still playing until the doorbell rang. All three were happy to see her and greeted her enthusiasticly, then they all went downstairs together. I sat down at the computer to work.
I appreciated not having to cook as we had leftovers from yesterday, which does not happen often enough any more. And so I was getting work done being able to work until noon. They all came upstairs before noon and wanted to watch videos or play with the tablet or listen to children's songs. It was closer to 12:15 that we sat down to eat. After we were done, they all had dessert, and Tammy and Emmy started watching a movie. At 1:15 I told them it was time to lay down for their nap. I still had to clean them up and put their shirts back on and ask them to go to the bathroom.
Before the Mobile Support lady left, she told me that Tammy had put a small broken off piece of plastic up her nose that was now stuck. Randy told me the same thing, when they came up before noon. When I cleaned them up, Tammy suddenly started crying, saying the piece in her nose was hurting her. I had planned to simply wait it out and hope it comes out by himself, but I did not expect her to have pain and cry. And so I told her we needed to go to the hospital to get it out. She nodded.
Randy canceled his plan to go to the store to get something on sale and sat down by the boys. The boys were not happy to see us leave, and Sammy actually never fell asleep without us there. He skipped his nap today. I wrote my 3:30 student, telling him I did not know whether I'd be back by then. The times I had to go there with Emmy, we often waited for 2 hours before it was our turn.
Tammy seemed pretty excited to go to the hospital with Mommy. We took the umbrella as it was raining all day and left the house to walk to the subway. There was no sleep for the girls today, and I was pretty tired, besides this cough still giving me a really hard time. Today I even burst a blood vessel in my nose because I'm coughing so hard.
We rode the subway for two stops and walked to the hospital. No more masks, no more tests required to get in. It was so unusual after 3 years with both. Walking to the children's emergency room, we walked by the throat-nose-ear department, and so I asked them whether we needed to check in with them or the general kids' department. They told us to stay. I had to fill out a form, then we were given papers and asked to sit down in the waiting room. There was a good number of other people there. It was exactly 2 pm, when we sat down. I gave Tammy the tablet, and she happily started playing a game. I closed my eyes as I was tired, preparing myself for a long wait. But we had only waited about 15 minutes, when our names were already called and we went in.
The young, female doctor was making small talk with Tammy to put her at ease. I sat down on the chair with Tammy on my lap. She looked inside Tammy's nostril, but could not see anything. Then an older doctor came and did the same. He even looked inside the other nostril. Then he got a tiny camera out and went inside both nostrils, but could not see anything. He said there was nothing there. Then Tammy mumbled something with a guilty face; I could not understand, what she said. I finally figured out that she said that it had fallen out while playing, and she later said it had fallen out even before they came upstairs to eat. I could not believe what I was hearing! I was shocked that she had lied to me like that, that we had gone through all this for nothing! All I was wondering was, why? To get to do something alone with Mommy? To skip nap time? To get to play with the tablet? Probably all of it.
We left the hospital and returned home, where we arrived just before 2:30 pm. Emmy was asleep, but not Sammy. I put Tammy to bed who soon fell asleep, and instead of sleeping myself, I spent the next 45 minutes or so trying to get Sammy to sleep as well. Then I gave up. As Emmy was already awake, Randy went downstairs with the boys. At 3:30 pm I sat down to teach my student withouth having had a nap and being very tired.
When I finished at 4:20 pm, we needed to leave the house immediately. I had forgotten to ask Tammy, whether she needed to go to the bathroom, as it's only been a few weeks that they don't wear diapers any more during the day. As a result she had wetted her bed while sleeping. She got a change of clothes, and we quickly left the house to walk to the train station.
It was cold and raining, and we walked quickly to not miss the train. We got on the 4:32 train, then rode the subway for one stop and walked in the rain to the school that was not far away. We returned the DVD's and book at the library on the first floor and took the elevator up to the third floor, where the school was. I took the kids to the bathroom, then we walked to the classroom.
The class was just starting, and there was another girl and a brother and sister there. The kids all got some rattles, then the teacher did the greeting song, going from child to child. Every child got to say what they wanted everyone to do during their song, which was mostly sing. Then she did an action song. I had Sammy, moving his arms and body to do the actions; the other two actually did them without being told to.
Then the kids all got drums, and she got a caterpillar out and told a story with it, while the kids got to drum at certain times. Then she drew notes on a paper and had the kids drum as often as there were notes. Then she did the butterly song. Each kid got two pieces of fabric and got to dance freely. Then she did another butterfly song, where one kid after another gets to choose someone to dance with. Emmy was chosen first, and he then picked Tammy. And Tammy picked Sammy.
Then the teacher gave them wooden sticks to play. She asked them to tap the syllables of words, which was rather hard for them. They practiced quite a bit, then sorted the words into categories according to their number of syllables.
I had Sammy for much of the time, but he was also with Daddy. I was surprised that you could not tell that he had not slept; he was not cranky. He was just hungry at one point, so Randy took him to the side to give him something to eat. All the kids had participated really well today. After the class, they all got stamps for their papers and on their skin. Then it was time to put their shoes back on. Then the teacher told us that her sister-in-law knew us from church. What a small world!
We left, stopped at the bathroom, then went downstairs to the library, where the kids got a DVD and book out each. Then we went back out into the rain to walk to the subway and go home.
We rode it for one stop, then went to the train platform to wait the few minutes until the train's arrival. They wanted to watch videos, but I told Tammy that there were no videos for her today after her stunt earlier, lying to me so that we went to the hospital for no reason at all. She was crying as a result, but sitting on my lap and being close to me.
By 6:45 pm we were back home. Both Tammy and Emmy were crying, when I said no videos but that they were gonna go straight into the bathtub. I made their sandwiches and cut up fruit and took it straight to the bathtub, where they were eating most of it while playing. Then we got them ready for bed. I was so extremely tired that I could barely keep my eyes open. I still read them a Bible story, then prayed for them and flew them into bed and sat down by them. It was 8 pm, their bedtime. And all three were still rather talkative.
It's day 4 of no more pacifiers, and I have to say I'm rather surprised at how fast they got over them. On day 3 already they did not even ask for them any more nor cry for them. It only took 2 days! I might have done this earlier had I known it would work that fast and easily.
We were talking about the day, and I was saying to Sammy that he did not get a nap because of his sister lying, and neither had I been able to get one, and Daddy couldn't go to the grocery store, all because of Tammy's lie. It made Tammy cry. I then comforted her, telling her that I had forgiven her, Sammy confirmed that he had, and I had Daddy confirm it as well. I told her that tomorrow was a new day, that it was in the past and over with. She stopped crying and agreed with me. Then she lay down to sleep. She and Sammy fell asleep rather quickly, but not Emmy. I was so tired that I left after a few minutes and lay down in my bed just for a few minutes to be functional again. Randy sat down by the kids, and Emmy still talked for way too long, until after 9 pm.
After a few minutes I forced myself back up and got myself something to eat. After having eaten, I went back to work. Now it's after 1 am and time to clean up the kitchen and go to bed. I have to teach at 9:30 in the morning.
